On Tuesday, Sept. 30, the Yale University Film Society, via email, announced a screening the following day of “Orwell: 2+2=5,” the latest documentary from Academy Award-nominated director Raoul Peck. The film, which focuses on British author George Orwell and features archival footage from the writer’s estate, with excerpts from his essays and diaries narrated by the actor Damian Lewis, arrived “at a moment of urgent resonance,” according to the announcement. It promised to offer “a stirring depiction of the dangers of unchecked power and the fragility of so-called civilized society, told through the eyes of a man from the past who may hold the key to the world’s future.”

For a campus screening, the email’s copy was unusually compelling. It was itself cinematic. Peck’s film, too, isn’t li

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